Elmer Lovejoy’s Toy

In 1898, there were no automobiles in Wyoming yet. Then, a 26-year-old man named Elmer Lovejoy, an influential mechanic in Laramie set out to change all that. Lovejoy had been quietly working on his “horseless carriage” and on May 7, 1898, he introduced the first automobile built west of the Mississippi River. Lovejoy took his new “toy” for a leisurely drive through downtown Laramie, going an “unimaginable” 8 miles an hour.

Lovejoy was a mechanical genius. The automobile he designed and built was a steam-propelled carriage that carried four people comfortably. Lovejoy designed balloon tires for his automobile and had them specially made in Chicago. Commercial balloon tires were not routinely used on automobiles until almost thirty years later. While Lovejoy’s car was not the first ever invented, he was the first to realize that cars would need pneumatic tires, not just solid rubber tires.

Elmer Lovejoy was born in Illinois on Feb. 2, 1872. He was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1883, and the family moved to Laramie in search of a drier climate, which was commonly prescribed for tuberculosis victims. He graduated from Laramie High School and went off to college at University of Wyoming. He knew early on that books weren’t really for him, so he dropped out of college after just three short months. He then became an apprentice at the Cook & Callahan planning mill. While he wasn’t good at “book learning,” he picked up things very fast at the mill. Very soon, he was assigned to major construction projects like the Edward and Jane Ivinson mansion, which is now the Laramie Plains Museum. He was also assigned the Saint Matthew’s Episcopal Cathedral project.

Lovejoy became an excellent businessman. It was well known that Elmer Lovejoy could fix anything. That is typical of a great mechanic. A little tinkering, and before you know it, the problem is solved. Lovejoy lived and worked in Laramie until 1953. Lovejoy, who was considered Laramie’s grand old man of mechanics put away his tool chest and, with his wife, Gertrude, whom he had married on August 3, 1930, in Maine. He left Laramie in 1953, for the warmer climate of Santa Ana, California, in which to spend his golden years. While he was retired, he never really stopped tinkering. Lovejoy died in California in 1960. He was loved by many and even had a popular downtown hangout down the street from his shop. Elmer Lovejoy’s Bar and Grill was named in his honor.